Affiliate marketing is one avenue that can help you move closer to this dream, allowing you to have a hands-free and automated way of making some extra income. So, what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing – What is it?

Basically, affiliate marketing is promoting products and services for commissions. It involves identifying a need in a given market, then identifying the best products to help fill this need. You then present these products to this market using your affiliate links so that you get paid commissions when a sale is made from your promotion efforts.

Does human nature count?

With affiliate marketing, your reward comes from leveraging on the human nature. Most people are naturally curious to try out things that will be beneficial to them. People also tend to be lazy. They do not want to do their own research to find the best products to help solve the problems they have in life. So, as an affiliate marketer, you simply do the research on their behalf, review different products, and then present your recommendations to the potential buyers, who are the people with the problem.

To set yourself up for affiliate marketing, you need to register with one (or several) of the different affiliate networks available out there. Some of the more popular networks include Paydotcom, Clickbank, Amazon, Commission Junction and eBay. Once you register with any of these networks, you will be able to generate unique links to the many different listed products in them. These unique links are the ones you use to direct potential buyers to the products listed in these networks.

Note that with affiliate marketing, you will be promoting other people’s products. It is therefore important to choose the products you promote wisely. Look for a product that will quench a particular thirst in a potential customer, offering them a unique benefit. Remember that it is human nature for a person to go for a product that only satisfies a certain need in them. Identify this need, and use it to identify a product that gives a solution to it. Then present this product to your potential buyers.

Upon identifying the product to promote, there are a number of ways you can drive targeted prospects to your generated affiliate links. You can make a review blog where you discuss the benefits and the downsides of this particular product, then recommending the product via your affiliate link.

Alternatively, you can set up a pay per click campaign where you pay for traffic from other well established websites. These can be websites in your niche, as well as the search engines and the social media networks. Similarly so, you can set up pay per view campaigns, or solo ads, among many other ways of free and paid advertising methods. Any method of advertising that gets your affiliate link in front of potential customers is highly recommended.

Finally, when sales are made through your affiliate links, you get credited for these sales. You are therefore paid a pre-set commission amount. Most affiliate networks pay very high percentage commissions, with some going as far up as 80 percent commission. This offers you a very good earn when you promote such a product.

Benefits of affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways of making money online. It is also one of the extra income methods that can be automated almost completely. All you need is to have the right tools to automate the whole process. Some of the tools include a domain, a hosting account, and an autoresponder.

With these, you can be able to fully automate this income stream. To top it all, affiliate marketing is a low capital way of making money. You can even be able to start with zero capital and end up in huge profits. You do not even need to have your own product in order to enter in to any market.

So, whether driven by human nature, or by simple instinct in to wanting a better life for yourself, affiliate marketing can be the most ideal option for an extra buck and especially for the very busy person.

Get It Now!

Affiliate marketing accounts for nearly half of our online income. As you say, the selection of a product that is right is in my opinion one of the biggest steps which may decided whether a website is going to successful in terms of monetizationor not. You can bring 1000’s of visitors per day to a site, if the affiliate product you see has no or little value, these visitors will soon leave your site without so much as a good bye!Stevie recently posted..Social Media Privacy! Is It Even Possible?

I know that I am still much of a beginner when it comes to affiliate marketing, only because I have just started applying the affiliate marketing model to my services. It actually is pretty nice since I have already done the leg work on engaging. I would never tell a person to just jump in and start pushing affiliate marketing on people… mostly due to the fact that people will just find that you are much like a spammer and uncaring about them.Nile recently posted..Social Media Successes: Fausto Fernós and Marc Felion of Feast of Fun

I found out how productive is affiliate marketing. Still trying to learn it and apply it the right way. Thanks for your great post and information. I think there are great products to promote and they change very quickly too according to the trend of the moment, we just have to position ahead of the trend.alicia@yboggle recently posted..Gems in Antigua

Definitely, affiliate marketers shouldn’t promote just hyped-up products. They should always choose to promote only those products that simplify the lives of their target audience. Another important thing to note in this regard is the price range. The price of the products should also be chosen wisely.

I’ve toyed with affiliate marketing a couple of times and didn’t get much out of it, but I would be the first to admit that’s entirely my doing. The core issue for me is I’ve yet to find products in my niche (lifestyle design and personal growth) I feel really good about promoting on my blog. Clearly affiliate marketing works best when the site is set up with that in mind, rather than attempting to ‘fit’ it in later. Still, I know affiliate marketing is for real so maybe it’s time to look at it again. Thanks!marquita herald recently posted..Adaptability: The Key to Adjusting to New Situations

Hey Frank, this really a great post and you have mentioned some really strong points here for anybody who wants to affiliate market. This a great means of making money and this post is the guide to it. You should mention about the mailing list, I’m trying to build up mine for this year. 🙂 Thanks again. 🙂Amrik @ Monetize Blogging recently posted..Free Virus Removal Tools & Useful Programs

Frank just superb article. I am new in this Blogging arena and i dont want to depend on Google Ads only so i will give a try for Affiliate marketing. I had some doubts about Affiliate Marketing now this article just clear that all doubts.
Thanks a lot for sharing this article.Amit Shaw recently posted..Top 5 Android Smartphones

I find that list building is the best way to promote an affiliate product. Try the following:
1. Build a double opt in list, where the person actually signs ups and confirms the subscription in the mail.
2. Pick a good affiliate product and test it. Purchase it yourself, make sure it is useful and adds value to your site visitors and subscribers. Talk honestly about the product and explain why the person should get it. Make sure it is something you would use yourself.
3. Get feedback on your suggest product, via conversion stats as well as word of mouth feedback. Did it convert well? Did your readers find it useful?

The goal here is to treat everyone like a human, be sensitive and care about their hard earned dollars, now spent on something you have attached your reputation to. Once you can do this, you’ll have a fine-tuned list that is super targeted and converts like mad. Anything else is a fruitless effort that should be abandoned IMO.

I’ve done some affiliate marketing and made a little bit through affiliate sales but I haven’t found any impressive results yet. I know that many people take courses on how to use affiliate marketing and maybe that’s something that I need to invest in.Stacy recently posted..5 Reasons You Should Quit Your Side Business Now

This is a very good overview of affiliate marketing. You bring out the value of affiliate marketing rather than pointing out negative aspects. I can go on and on about this subject, but I will leave these key thoughts.

I completely agree with you that affiliate marketing can be very lucrative, and I have tried out many programs until I was able to find the perfect product for me to promote. Of course having your own product is ideal, however if you are not the type to take that route, affiliate marketing is the next best thing.

I think your passion for the product is very important. For example, there are some products that just don’t do it for me, and people can sense when there isn’t passion behind the product.

As an affiliate, another important thing to look at is the commission structure. If the commission isn’t high enough, you can work very hard and come up with a minimal amount of money in relationship to the hours spent promoting it. Time is money. Thanks for this excellent article.

My site and blog are pretty new and focus on health and stress. I haven’t really had much success with affiliate marketing, but it may be because my traffic is so low or I haven’t identified the best products yet…. I need to spend more time learning about how to approach it successfully. Thanks for the information!Kristen recently posted..The Happiest Countries: Why Aren’t People in the United States Happier?

Affiliate marketing is very enticing. Making an extra stream of income besides from what you do is very nice. It is an increasing trend online and why not do it. It’s pretty cool when you can have it automated and just manage the sites. Do the work once and let it run.Jacob recently posted..5 Insider Personal Branding Tips For Attraction Marketing

Hi Jacob, I have read a lot of great tips about affiliate marketing but never had success on it 🙁 I have followed almost every tip but it seem too elusive for me.Herbert recently posted..Simple Steps to Successful Blogging

Outstanding blog, I have been viewing blogs for some time now and this one stand out because the writer of the contents has a unique style and the posts contain knowledge different from others. This definitely helps me on my research on internet marketing. I also bookmarked it.

Very informative! Thanks for sharing. This post is very much needed as we all would like to earn extra, and what a good way to do it. I agree though that before promoting other products you will have to make sure that you are being true to yourself and believe in the product that you are promoting. Also be critical of the price and quality of the products you promote.

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